Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath has gone public with his modest career beginnings, revealing the details of his first paycheck in a frank chat with investor-author Ruchir Sharma in a recent episode of the WTF podcast. Kamath, who is often admired for his calm nature and even claims he “never gets angry,” spoke about how his early professional life was far from glamorous but very developmental.
Kamath's humble beginning at a Bengaluru call center
On the podcast, Kamath shared that he started off with his first job at a Bengaluru call center in the early 2000s, where he was making only $1,000 a year which was about ₹88,000 then. He had night shifts and called the experience modest but useful in instilling in him a concept of discipline and work culture. Kamath has attributed this initial stint to the foundation of hands-on knowledge about people, persistence and problem-solving, skills that came in handy when he co-founded Zerodha, which is today's India's biggest stock brokerage. Despite the meagre paycheck, he views this period as a critical steppingstone in his entrepreneurial journey.
Sharma's meteoric entry into world finance
In contrast, Ruchir Sharma revealed that he started his career in 1996 at the age of 22 with Morgan Stanley in India, with an annual salary of $100,000 which is equivalent of almost ₹88 lakh today. Sharma said that he was thinking of pursuing a PhD but was convinced by the Wall Street giant to join it's Mumbai office instead. The move turned out to be a turning point in his career. By the early 2000s, Sharma had moved to New York, where he became Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley. He now heads international business at Rockefeller Capital Management and is a best-selling author of books including Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations.
Even though they had such vastly different beginnings, both Sharma and Kamath's stories highlight that success does not follow a single path whether it begins with a modest call center salary or a lucrative Wall Street offer. Watch the full video.
